The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air #1)(47)

I am not sure I am very good at kissing. My mouth is clumsy. I am shy. I want to pull him closer and push him away at the same time. Faeries do not have a lot of taboos around modesty, but I do. I am afraid that my mortal body stinks of sweat, of decay, of fear. I am not sure where to put my hands, how hard to grab, how deep to sink my nails into his shoulders. And while I know what comes after kissing, while I know what it means to have his hands slide up over my bruised calf to my thigh, I have no idea how to hide my inexperience.

He pulls back to look at me, and I try to keep the panic out of my eyes.

“Stay tonight,” he murmurs.

For a moment, I think he means with him, like with him, and my heart speeds with some combination of desire and dread. Then, abruptly, I remember there’s going to be a party—that’s what he’s asking me to stay for. Those unseen servants, wherever they are, must be preparing the estate. Soon Valerian, my would-be murderer, might be dancing in the garden.

Well, maybe not dancing. He’ll probably be leaning against a wall stiffly, with a drink in his hand, bandages around his ribs, and a new plan to murder me in his heart. If not new orders to murder me from Cardan.

“Your friends won’t like it,” I say, sliding off the table.

“They’ll quickly be too drunk to notice. You can’t spend your life locked up in Madoc’s glorified barracks.” He gives me a smile that is clearly meant to charm me. It kind of works. I think about Dain’s offer to give me a love mark on my brow and wonder idly if Locke might have one, because, despite everything, I am tempted.

“I don’t have the right clothes,” I say, gesturing to the tunic I have on, stained with Valerian’s blood.

He looks me up and down longer than an inspection of my garments requires. “I can find you a gown. I can find you anything you’d like. You asked me about Cardan, Valerian, and Nicasia—come see them outside of school, come see them be foolish and drunk and debased. See their vulnerabilities, the cracks in their armor. You’ve got to know them to beat them, right? I don’t say you’ll like them any better, but you don’t need to like them.”

“I like you,” I tell him. “I like playing pretend with you.”

“Pretend?” he echoes, as though he’s not sure if I’m insulting him.

“Of course,” I say, going to the windows of the hall and looking out. Moonlight streams onto the leafy entrance to the maze. Torches are burning nearby, the flames flickering and wavering in the wind. “Of course we’re pretending! We don’t belong together, but it’s fun anyway.”

He gives me an evaluating, conspiratorial look. “Then let’s keep doing it.”

“Okay,” I say helplessly. “I’ll stay. I’ll go to your party.” I have had little fun in my life so far. The promise of more is difficult to resist.

He leads me through several rooms until we come to double doors. For a moment, he hesitates, glancing back at me. Then he pushes them open, and we’re in an enormous bedroom. A thick, oppressive layer of dust blankets everything. There are footprints—two sets. He’s come in here before, but not many times.

“The dresses in the closet were my mother’s. Borrow whatever you like,” he says, taking my hand.

Looking around this untouched room at the heart of the house, I understand the grief that made him lock it up for so long. I am glad to be let in. If I had a room full of my mother’s things, I do not know if I would let anyone inside. I don’t even know if I would brave it myself.

He opens one of the closets. Much of the clothing is moth-eaten, but I can see what they once were. A skirt with a beaded pattern of pomegranates, another that pulls up, like a curtain, to show a stage with jeweled mechanical puppets underneath. There is even one stitched with the silhouette of dancing fauns as tall as the skirt itself. I’ve admired Oriana’s dresses for their elegance and opulence, but these awaken in me a hunger for a dress that’s riotous. They make me wish I’d seen Locke’s mother in one of her gowns. They make me think she must have liked to laugh.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dress like any of these,” I tell him. “You really want me to wear one?”

He brushes a hand over a sleeve. “I guess they’re a bit rotted.”

“No,” I say. “I like them.”

The one with the fauns is the least damaged. I dust it off and tug it on behind an old screen. I struggle, because it’s the sort of dress that’s difficult to put on without Tatterfell’s help. I have no idea how to arrange my hair any differently, so I leave it as is—braided in a crown around my head. When I wipe off a silver mirror with my hand and see myself dressed in a dead faerie’s clothes, a shudder goes through me.

Suddenly, I do not know why I am here in this place. I am not sure of Locke’s intentions. When he tries to drape me in his mother’s jewels, I refuse them.

“Let’s go out to the garden,” I say. I no longer want to be in this empty, echoing room.

He puts away the long string of emeralds he was holding. As we leave, I look back at the closet of moldering clothes. Despite my feelings of unease, there’s a part of me that can’t help imagining what it would be like to be the mistress of this place. Imagining Prince Dain with the crown. Imagining entertaining at the long table we kissed against, my classmates all drinking the pale green wine and pretending they had never tried to murder me. Locke, with his hand in mine.